The Collection
by purastella
Summary: This is a collection of one-shots and outtakes that take place in my Avengers/HP crossover series, the first of which is titled "It Starts With Why".


**(A/N): Hey guys. I know it's been awhile and I'm sorry for that. Life kind of got in the way there for a bit and, to be honest, I was kind of struggling trying to figure out the flow of the story. Thankfully though, I've finally figured things out and am hard at work on the sequel to _It Starts With Why. _But hey, at least you know I'm still alive and working, right?**

**I know that this isn't exactly what you were hoping for, but I hope you like it. This piece is a character study of Hermione and gives a good insight into what her mindset is going to be like in the upcoming book- along with giving you a glimpse of a few characters you'll be meeting soon. I look forward to seeing if you can figure out who's going to be joining this story-world in the future!**

**All thanks and love goes to my beta Hannbells for reading this one-shot and encouraging me to post it.**

**Thank you all for reading! Enjoy!**

* * *

Her fist slammed into the mirror and glass shattered onto the bathroom floor. But now, instead of just one pair of eyes, dozens of gazes stared back at her.

_She was Mia Danvers-Lokisdottir._

_She was Mia Stark._

_She was Hermione Granger._

_She was all of them._

_She was none of them._

She was no one. She was no one and nothing.

She would never be whole.

She was the broken mirror shattered on the ground around her. The voices echoing inside her head were JARVIS' voice overhead- never truly leaving her alone even when giving off the illusion of it.

"Miss Stark," JARVIS was calling. "Are you alright?"

A broken, twisted laugh ripped out of her. _Was she alright?_ What a ridiculous question. What an impossible question. She was a girl of many things but the one thing she had never been was alright.

She was broken and could never be fixed. She was empty and could never be filled. She was a damaged record- frozen in time and never able to continue on.

But most of all, no matter how much anyone tried to say otherwise, she was worthless.

Never good enough to protect her family. Never good enough to protect her friends. Never good enough to protect herself. Never good enough at all really.

If there was an actual God out there- an all-knowing, overarching deity- then her blood would have been splattered out onto the floor among the mirror shards. Blood was essential to life after all.

If she couldn't bleed, then did that mean she wasn't actually alive?

The door banged open and she instinctively turned away, disappearing from the room with a crack.

* * *

She was a witch.

She was a human.

She was a god.

She was a warrior.

She was alone.

* * *

Standing on the edge of a cliff, she stared down into the darkness below. The crash of the water echoed against the rocks. Steve had frozen in the water.

Could she freeze too?

_To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream. _

_A dream is a wish your heart makes._

But whose heart?

Mia's heart?

Hermione's heart?

* * *

"Don't do this," someone pleaded from behind her.

She turned and found a girl with large eyes and glowing red hands. "Why?"

The girl shook her head. "Because it's not your time."

Would her laugh ever sound normal again? "My time? Is that all my life is now? Sitting around and waiting for my moment to die? Is that all I have left? Is that all my future holds?"

"You still have me," the girl whispered. "I'm here- I'm right here. We both are. We're waiting for you to find us."

"You're not real!" she shouted, throwing her arms out and allowing the fire she kept so tightly bound to her to explode out of her palms. "You're not here! _You're not real_."

Staring at her sadly, the girl shrugged. "Nothing is truly real until you can reach out and touch it for yourself."

* * *

When her memories had finally been returned to her, she had thought that had been the end of it. She had thought she had found her answers.

"I don't know who I am," she whispered to the wind, curled up on the ground with her arms wrapped tight around her knees.

Her memories hadn't given her answers.

Was she Mia Danvers-Lokisdottir?

Was she Hermione Granger?

_Does it actually matter? _she wondered.

_Does it matter what name goes on the tombstone? _

She won't be there to read it. Will anyone else read it though?

_Does it matter what name goes on the tombstone when there's no there to read it anyway?_

Mia.

Hermione.

Alone.

* * *

"Who did you lose?" the red man questioned before he mockingly asked, "Was it someone you loved?"

"I lost myself," she responded. "But it's alright- I never loved her anyway."

A man in black sat down next to her and leaned back against the brick wall behind them. There was violence in this man's gaze. Anger and rage and war. _Feelings._

"We don't get to pick the things that fix us," he told her.

"What if we can't be fixed?" she asked. "What if this is just what we are now?"

The girl sitting on her other side pushed her long blond hair back and met her gaze with steady blue eyes. "Then don't you have the right to know that too?"

* * *

"_I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"_

"_Even if I remember being Hermione, can I still be Mia?"_

"_Welcome to the family, Mia Stark."_

* * *

Pepper's arms were wrapped tight around her. "Don't do that," she ordered in a trembling voice. "Don't just run off without telling someone what's going on."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, doing her best to project a true emotion. To seem like a person who was feeling something right then.

"What happened?" Tony asked, sitting in front of them and staring with unblinking eyes. "Where'd you go?"

"I had a nightmare and I just… panicked. When you started banging on the door it startled me and I just reacted instinctively. I truly didn't mean to worry you."

Tony and Pepper shared a concerned look. "You okay?" Tony finally asked.

"I'm fine," Mia lied. "I'm feeling better now."

* * *

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